


It Happened Before, This So Called Misery Shaped Hole

by maaldas



Series: It Happened Before [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hallucinations, Homophobia, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Neediness, Pre - wincest, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maaldas/pseuds/maaldas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written as fill for this prompt on spnkink_meme After Sam's meltdown at the end of 'Repo Man', the only thing keeping him grounded is Dean's touch. He literally needs skin-to-skin contact with his brother all the time; anything more than half a minute without it and the hellfire starts to sizzle.</p><p>    Cue the two of them holding hands over dinner, Sam lying on Dean's thigh with his face pressed into his bare stomach while they're driving, Dean attempting to use the 'we're not gay he's just my very insecure little brother' excuse so as not to be kicked out of homophobic/family-friendly diners, etc etc. I'd also love to see the comic side of the scenario, with longsuffering!Dean trying to perform regular daily activities (changing clothes, taking a dump, etc) while Sam clings to him like a limpet. Wincest or pre-wincest or even just brotherly Sam+Dean is all fine by me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Happened Before, This So Called Misery Shaped Hole

**Author's Note:**

> So sorry for the continued Angst. I've been hunting for the funny muse all week but she kinda slipped away. ;P Next part maybe... hehehe... :)
> 
>  
> 
> Beta: jonjokeat
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine.

 

  
  
“Sam, what the hell?” Dean bursts through the motel room door and throws his duffel on one of the beds before rounding up to face Sam who walks more slowly into the room. “Are you saying that this… this madness is because of me?”   
  
“Well, not exactly. But-”  
  
“But it is because of me.”   
  
“No, Dean! It’s not you, it’s me. I’m the one who let him in and now he’s scrambling my brain and I don’t know how to make it stop.”   
  
Sam slumps over on one of the beds, the one without Dean’s duffel on it and rubs his face with his palms before propping his elbows on his thighs, face still hidden behind his hands. Sam had told Dean about Lucifer and his sizzling hell fire that seems to follow Sam whenever he goes. No matter what Sam does he won’t go away and the hand trick does not work anymore. Dean gathers from the little that his brother has told him, during their temporary stopover at the side road few miles from the motel, that Sam has been ignoring the Devil’s presence for months now, never engaging his taunts and had been able to shoo away any disturbing images the hallucination brought. Except when Dean’s live was in danger. Granted, Dean had never been there when that had happened but he can remember how frantic Sam had been the few times Dean had almost been killed. He usually just chalked it up to Sam being his usual bitchy self but maybe there was a more serious matter underlying it.   
  
Now, that the breaking point had been reached, there seemed to be very limited number of ways for Sam to hold the hell memories at bay.   
  
“And what’s the deal with the hand holding thing, anyway?” asks Dean before he mutters, “God, It sounds like a chick flick,” under his breath with a roll of his eyes.   
  
Sam puts his hands down on his lap but avoids Dean’s eyes. He keeps his gaze on the floor and shrugs.   
  
“So?” Dean continues, “you spent every ten minutes or so of our ride here subtly trying to hold my hand …and, and, this morning I believe you held my hand the whole time I was sleeping? … I mean … even if I’m not all yay about the hippie thing, please don’t think I’m that stupid or ignorant. I notice things, especially when it’s about you. Now spill!”   
  
Sam looks up and meets Dean’s eyes. Dean is standing in front of him now, hands folded in front of his chest, eyes hard and demanding. Sam knows he cannot afford to keep it from Dean for much longer because this thing inside his head, this madness is getting harder to control and he knows that sooner or later Dean is bound to find out. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly with a shaky sigh. He avoids looking at his brother’s face, afraid of the judgment that he will see there, so he fixes his attention on Dean’s shoes instead.   
  
Sam has always known that he was a freak. Maybe he was not as accepting as he is now when he was a kid, always running away from his family looking for normal. But now he knows that he’s been the freak all along, what with the demon blood and psychic power, and the family have just ridden along with it, making the best of the situation, Dean especially. Yet, despite all that, it still hurts when Dean thinks of him that way. He cannot control what he is and he just wishes that Dean would stop throwing it in his face every time he does something weird. Of all people, Sam craves Dean’s acceptance. He already has Dean’s unconditional brotherly love but let’s just say that Sam is greedy. Well, can anyone blame him?  
  
“It’s… when I touch you… it seems to go away,” explains Sam carefully in a very low voice like he hopes Dean does not hear it but of course he does. Dean has a kind of super hearing when it comes to him anyway. He seems to be able to hear what Sam doesn’t want to say even if Sam doesn’t say it out loud.   
  
“Excuse me?” Dean blinks once and raises his eyebrows.  
  
“It’s-”  
  
“No, no… yeah, I get it but… what the hell? I mean, why?”   
  
Dean’s countenance falters. It is comical the way his face twists up, befuddled as his hands spread out in front of him and his body tenses. Sam chances a look at his brother’s face a split second before averting his gaze downward again, ready for a blow by blow from his brother. Dean tends to be defensive when he is nervous and out of his element. Everything he says stems from self defense not unlike his bravado crap and cocky smirk bullshit but he never means it. Sam knows Dean never means it but it still stings.   
  
“I’m not sure,” Sam whispers.   
  
Dean closes his eyes for a moment feeling like he’s been thrown into the twilight zone. Last year’s mishap when they were thrown into TV land, meeting their pseudo selves felt like nothing compared to this. It sounds like one of Lisa’s bad romance novels that she always read before bedtime. He is aware that their life is weird. There are all kinds of weird up their alley. It’s kind of in the job description actually, but this? He begins to wonder whether Sam is pulling his leg. Perhaps he’s so pissed at him and his annoying habits and jackass attitude lately, that he’s decided to pull this stunt.   
  
“Well, I’ll… I’ll get something to eat,” says Dean finally, trying to break the suddenly awkward moment between them. He scratches his head as he looks around the room, stalling. “You want anything?”   
  
Sam is fidgeting nervously on the bed with eyes still focused downward. He twiddles his fingers for few seconds before tentatively reaching them out to Dean. Dean eyebrows rise so high they nearly touch his hairline as he stares at Sam’s outstretched hand.  
  
“Seriously?” asks Dean, looking at his brother with disbelief painted clearly on his face. Sam’s hand is frozen in mid air. His other hand squeezes the mattress so hard that he almost rips it.   
  
Dean can’t see Sam’s face as his little brother stubbornly keeps his face hidden but he recognizes the symptoms already. Even after having only seen it a couple of times, he’s starting to see the pattern when Sam’s defenses, or what’s left of them, crumble; the agitation, the irregular breathing, the manic frightened eyes, the tense muscles. It won’t be long before the incident in the previous motel or the car is repeated. A tremor runs through Sam’s body. He’s trying to hold it back and curb it but it still trembles through his arms and Dean sees it.   
  
“Ughh… for the love of …”   
  
Dean snatches Sam’s retreating hand before his brother can take it back and wallow miserably in silence. Dean has had enough of that. Keeping secrets never ends well in their family’s history. All the crazy things that happened back then, happened mostly because there were too many secrets between them. Mom’s secret deal, Dad’s secrets… everything; the man had so many of them he put the titanic iceberg to shame, honestly, not to mention Sam’s secret. His little brother really was a bitch for keeping secrets. So now, from now on, no matter how bad it is, Dean wants to know all about them and being unreceptive to Sam’s pain is not the way to gain his trust and get him to open up.  
As their hands touch, Sam’s quickly latches on putting his other hand on top of Dean’s and holds fast as if he’s going to fall back down into hell if he doesn’t. Perhaps he really would, in his head at least. Dean lets his brother take as much comfort as he needs before telling him to rest whilst he goes out to buy some coffee and food for them. He promises to return soon after gaining Sam’s assurance that he will be okay for the next fifteen minutes.   
  
<<<<<<<<<o>>>>>>>>>  
  
Sammy wakes up suddenly. There is a tap-tap-tap sound on the window across from his bed that sounds really scary. Sammy’s heart beats faster and faster and his breath quickens as the tap-tap-tap sound seems to get louder and fills the room. He looks to his right and sees his brother’s back half covered under the blanket. He scoots to his brother’s side of the bed and shakes his shoulder. “Dean… Dean wake up,” whispers Sammy tearfully. “I think the mummy’s coming get me. He’s outside the window. Dean…”   
  
Then, a very loud tapping sound from the window makes Sammy jump and he starts to whimper, his lower lip trembles and his eyes water. He shakes his brother’s shoulder harder as his eyes become glued to the dark skeletal hand shadow on the curtain. Dean rubs his bleary eyes and looks over his shoulder to see his baby brother of four years old crying behind him.  
“Whas’it Sammy?”   
  
“Hiks… Dean…” Sammy’s little hand trembled when he points his trembling finger at the window where the skeletal hand makes random tapping sounds on the window.   
  
“Huh?” says Sammy’s big brother articulately. He is still half asleep but he rubs his eyes again and swings his feet off the bed anyway, intent on investigating the shadowy entity at the window.   
  
Sammy hides behind his brother and wraps his little arms around his torso. “No, Dean! He’ll get you too!”   
  
“It’s ok, Sammy. He won’t get me. I promise!”   
  
Dean untangles his brother’s arms from his body then reaches under his pillow for his pocket knife, a birthday presents from his dad, and a shotgun from beside the bed. He slips the knife into his waistbands and holds up the shotgun with both hands before taking careful steps towards the window, hands steady.   
  
They are currently staying in a rented house for a few months and their father had left that morning promising to return the next day. The shadow at the window seems to be getting bigger and longer as Dean reaches the middle of the room. He hears Sammy’s frightened gasps as the shadow makes another loud knock on the glass. Suddenly, he remembers the incident a few months back when their father was hunting a shtriga. The son of a bitch almost got Sammy and Dean had vowed that he’d kill it the next time he saw it. Perhaps the shtriga had come  to settle business. Well, Dean is sure to finish it off this time.  
  
When he gets to the window, his shotgun muzzle touching the curtain, he realizes that something doesn’t add up. The shadow seems to sway unsteadily outside the window making its shadowy image contort in a weird way. Dean frowns. He glances at the unbroken salt line on the windowsill before reaching for his pocket knife. He balances the shotgun in one hand by pressing the stock into his chest for leverage as he fishes his pocket knife out of his waistband. He clicks the knife open and in a quick slash pushes aside the curtains to reveal tree branches knocking on the glass as they sway in the wind. Dean lets out a relieved sigh, accompanied by an eye roll for the silliness.   
  
“It’s okay, Sammy. Just tree branches,” Dean calls out to his little brother. He leans his shotgun it up against the wall under the window before unlocking the door. He takes a handful of the tree branches and cuts them off with his knife before relocking it. He checks the salt line before picking up his shotgun and returning to bed. Sammy looks up hopefully at him.   
  
“Go back to sleep, squirt,” Dean tells his little brother. He puts his knife back under his pillow and arranges his shotgun under the bed as Sammy looks back at the window, now devoid of wicked shadows.   
  
“No mummies?” asks little Sammy in a whispery voice.   
  
“No,” answers Dean as he climbs back into bed shoving Sammy off his side but his little brother springs back and latches his arms around him as he settles in.   
  
“It was scary Dean,” he whimpers as he burrows his face into Dean’s chest.   
  
“Freak! You’re such a crybaby and a burden.”   
  
Sammy looks up with a pained expression on his chubby face. “Why d’you say that?”   
  
“Because that’s what you are! I never asked for a little brother like you. You’re just a burden to everybody. I wish you’d never been born and spared us all the misery you’ve caused!”   
  
Dean shoves Sammy off him then jumps out of the bed, a cruel and sinister smirk on his face. Sammy is crying now. He is shocked that his big brother, the only person that he adores and worships above all else even slightly above his daddy, says those evil words to him. He cries out at Dean and lifts up his arms reaching for his big brother but Dean just steps further back, mocking laughter ringing in Sammy’s ears.   
  
“You deserve to be in hell, Sammy!” shouts Dean, eyes full of hatred towards his little brother.  
  
As if on cue, the bed starts to catch fire. It starts from the foot of the bed and quickly spreads trapping Sammy. The little boy is screaming and crying for his brother both hands reaching out to beg for help but Dean just laughs at him.   
  
“Deeeeeeannnnnn…”   
  
The fire reaches Sammy’s outstretched hands and runs along his skinny arms. He screams and screams but his voice is unheard amongst the crackles of the fire . The fire is eating up his body and licking his face. Pain like he’d never felt before wracking his nerves and overloading his brain until it burns out. The room is reshaping into a hook filled cage and the bed grows chain-like tentacles that shackle his limbs, trapping him in the burning bed.   
  
The door to the motel room opens suddenly and Dean runs in. He is immediately beside Sam wrapping his palms around Sam’s face, calling out his name over and over. But Sam is long gone, trapped in the throes of his memories. His body has gone rigid, his limbs spread across the bed and his muscles nearly popping out of his skin. His screaming has not abated since Dean entered the room and it has been ten minutes already.   
  
“Sam, please… please… Sammy…”   
  
Dean’s voice trembles. He feels so lost that he is willing to do anything to get his brother free of this suffering. After all, he sold his soul for his brother. What could be worse than that? He is at the end of his tether. Dean does not want to believe Sam’s earlier confessions about how his touch seems to ground Sam and keeps him coherent. Not because he is disgusted over the touching but merely because he does not have that high an opinion of himself. He doesn’t have healing powers like the angels nor does he have empathy. He is just Dean, Sam’s big brother. Nothing more. Even he sucks at it, in his opinion. How many times has he let his brother die or be in danger of dying? He let Sam get seduced by a demon, get addicted to demon’s blood, sent to hell and now this suffering is somehow because of him. He does nothing but ruin everything in his wake. Trailing pain and misery everywhere he goes and worse, he drags his little brother with him just because he doesn’t want to be alone. Dean has always firmly believed that he deserves hell… but not Sam. No, not Sam. Not his little brother.   
  
There is no one to ask for help, no guidance, no nothing. There is nothing left to do but to heave Sam’s stiff body up and hold him in his arms. Dean hugs Sam close to him, buries his face in his neck to dampen his unrelenting screaming and grips him tight with one hand around his shoulder and his fingers in his hair. Then, he starts rocking. A swaying motion that starts small, just a bit of movement left and right and he hums. At first, the tone is random. Then, Dean remembers _Hey Jude_. It has been a very long time since he last sang that song to a sleepy Sammy.   
  
Dean does not count the time but after a while Sam’s muscles gradually loosen. His screaming is reduced to raspy whimpers and ragged breathing. It feels like years before Sam’s arms slowly wind around Dean’s back, holding him as tightly and as desperately as Dean’s holding him.   
  
  
  
Continue to It happened before, while Sam was in hell

  



End file.
